Chapter 35: Clay!

[ Ding! Check-in successful. ]

[ Ding! Congratulations to the host for obtaining a reward: Diver’s Breath ]

Looking at the reward, Ed’s breathing started to quicken. This was something that had definitely been prepared specially for him!

He had just gained control of a large lake, and now he obtained the Diver’s Breath skill. Furthermore, he had never obtained a talent skill like before.

Ed opened the storage interface to find a small blue card.

As he looked closer, he noticed a detailed introduction inscribed on the card.

[ Diver’s Breath: when using this ability, the host can freely breathe in water like a fish. ]

The introduction was short but concise. With just a few words, it revealed all the information he needed about the skill.

It seemed to imply that as long as Ed had this card, regardless of whether it was a lake, river, or even the ocean, he would be able to swim naturally like a fish.

In some ways, this skill was too powerful.

As he thought about what this meant for him, Ed retrieved the blue card from the interface.

Right as it came into contact with him, the card transformed into a blue dot before passing through Ed’s forehead and vanishing.

In the meantime, his body had started to undergo some changes.

He suddenly felt a comforting warm current flow through him. More importantly, he could feel that his breathing was becoming several times lighter than before.

This skill was indeed very helpful.

Ed locked his eyes onto the lake in front of him.

For some reason, he now felt connected to it. He had always enjoyed playing in water, and now, upon obtaining such a skill, Ed couldn’t stand to spend another moment on dry land.

Plop!

Ed sprinted towards the lake before diving into the water, leaving Little Treasure behind.

As he crashed through the surface of the water, his entire body started to sink.

Ed opened his eyes instinctively. He did not feel the discomfort brought about by the current. Instead, he felt right at home. Enveloped by a strange sense of familiarity, he felt as if he had lived here in the lake for his whole life.

Ed tried to breathe, but did not feel the usual sting of water going into his nose. When he exhaled, he could see small bubbles being formed.

This proved that he could now live on both land and sea. One could even call it a heaven-defying skill.

As he continued to swim underwater, Ed made some interesting discoveries.

All kinds of fish swimmed past him, and some of them would stop for a few seconds to stare at Ed.

They seemed to be asking themselves, “How did this human come here?”

The more time he spent underwater, the more fishes he started to see. As he explored further, Ed came across a bed of aquatic plants, where many silver coloured fish swam around.

He wanted to take a closer look and so swam with both arms towards the plants.

Upon inspection, he realized that they were anchovies. There were quite a number of them, probably more than a hundred in total, all resting amidst the aquatic plants.

Ed suddenly noticed that the bodies of these fish were emitting a faint yellow light.

Gold-quality anchovies!

There were so many of them there. They would definitely be worth a huge fortune.

Ed felt the urge to catch all of them immediately, but managed to restrain himself.

He decided to leave them here in this lake for the time being.

As for the other fishes…

He planned to bring them all back.

Since he was the one who found them first, it only felt right for him to take them home.

Then, with a thought, Ed turned the omnipotent small hammer into a huge fishing net.

Disregarding the water resistance, he tried to catch the small fish that swam around, fishing net in hand.

Thinking about it, Ed must have been the first person in the history of mankind to catch fish underwater.

The notification alert from catching a fish rang repeatedly in his head. Luckily, he remembered that he could turn it off, or else he probably would have gone deaf from all the noise.

“It’s almost done.”

Ed stored the fishing net and retrieved an enormous wooden bucket that he had prepared beforehand. He filled it with lake water, and even plucked some aquatic plants to place inside. By doing this, Ed hoped to recreate the lake’s environment in the bucket. Finally, he put all the fish that he caught in it.

Although the aquatic plants looked beautiful, they weren’t just for decoration. Their most important feature was to produce oxygen.

Yes, they could produce oxygen!

Even though there was oxygen in the lakewater itself, its content was relatively low.

However, with the aquatic plants he found, Ed could raise these small fishes without having to worry about the oxygen in the water running out.

This seemed to be a common problem for people who reared fish, as the oxygen in their water would often deplete if they didn’t replace it in time, causing their fish to die.

After doing this, Ed returned to the lake.

He started to catch even more fish. He wanted to take everything in the lake back, not leaving even a single blade of grass.

If he didn’t get everything now, he might have to run back and forth a few times, during which he could encounter some other dangerous beasts.

As he went ashore once again, he had already collected everything he wanted from the lake.

Ed opened up the system to calculate his haul this time.

[ carp x52, grass carp x100, gold-quality anchovies x175, aquatic plants x1000]

This harvest was abundant.

However, Ed still planned on going back down once more. It would be a pity if he missed something important there.

Plop.

He dived into the water again and allowed himself to sink.

Little Treasure was used to it by now. He had jumped into the lake so many times that it seemed natural.

This time, Ed looked around carefully.

He didn’t need to return to the surface for air and so took advantage of that to stay for as long as he wanted.

He started to scour every corner of the lake rigorously.

“What is this?”

During his search, Ed suddenly came across a strange area. Beneath a few scattered rows of seaweed, he noticed that the color of the soil here did not seem to match the rest of the lakebed.

He swam towards it, exerting strength with both arms, while his legs moved gracefully in the water like a fish.

Pushing the seaweed away, Ed reached out and managed to grab a sample of the soil from that strange looking place.

At that moment, a notification alert rang in his mind.

[ Notice ] : Clay +1

Huh?

It was clay!

Ed did not expect his luck to be this good.

Fortunately, he had managed to find the clay just in time before leaving. Otherwise, he would have had to harvest it by other means when he required it in the future, which would have been much more troublesome.

Without a moment to spare, Ed started digging in the mud.

As he listened to the recurring notification alerts from collecting more clay, Ed’s grin turned wider.

Two hours passed.

Eventually, all the clay under the lake was harvested. Before he left the lake for good, Ed took care to check around the lake a few more times in order to make sure that no stone was left unturned.

[ Notice ] : Clay + 330

The notification sounded once again.

330 portions of clay!

This was the main material needed to make bricks. With so much clay on him now, Ed could make thousands of them.

With this, he could build the house!

“Little Treasure, let’s go home!”

Ed hummed a cheerful tune as he began to walk back towards his territory.